Before Ravi Bopara became a franchise regular, at 40 he turns in the Nepal Premier League, he was England’s big hope in Tests and ODIs. was an elegant batsman, chipped in handy medium pace and an exceptional fielder. But Bopara’s Test career was short-lived, featuring in only 13 matches, the peak being three hundreds in a series against West Indies. The unravelling came during the Ashes at home in 2009, where then coach Andy Flower, his close friend in Essex, got frustrated by his inconsistent streak.
He recollects to The Guardian: “Look, I loved Andy. Still do. He was one of my heroes. He was like this guru,” he says now. “I’d sit there watching him score all these runs and just go, ‘Wow’.” And I guess he was trying to get the best out of me as a player at the time, but he went the wrong way about it, and I really struggled.”
After getting out for 35 in the first innings in Cardiff, Flower summoned him to his hotel room. “He just f****g gave it to me. After that first innings at Cardiff, when I got out to the slower ball off Johnson, I had to go see Andy in his hotel room. I was like ‘Yeah, no worries’. Got back to his room and he just let me have it. Like, ‘What the f**k are you doing? Do you know who’s batting No 3 for Australia? Ricky Ponting! And he’s just got 150!’ You know, stuff like that. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll get a hundred in the second innings.’ And Bopara said, ‘You’d f****g better, because we’ll end up losing this Test because of you’.”
The conversation devastated Bopara. “I know he didn’t mean that. It was his way of getting me going. But on reflection I went into my shell. I shat myself, thinking, ‘I don’t think he rates me. He must think I’m shit’. And after that I was just nowhere for the rest of the series, I was so nervous about batting and I just felt like eyes were staring at me.”
In hindsight, Bopara says, he took the game far more seriously than he should have. “I would say, definitely, that throughout my career I’ve tried to take on too much responsibility, and I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d been more careless, just like I was when I first came around. I was aggressive, and I played my shots, and I didn’t really care,” he said.
He was occasionally picked in shorter formats, but played his last international game in 2015, after an explosive press conference where he criticised England batsmen’s fear of playing shots. “Literally no one said anything! So I said, ‘We’re shit scared of playing our shots! Look at the other teams, they’re scoring 350, 400 and we’re still tinkering around 250, we’re miles off lads. We need to grow some balls and stop being so scared of getting out caught mid-off, when that’s no different to getting cleaned up or caught behind,” said Bopara.
England never returned to him, and admitted of the incident gnawing at him. “I wish I could’ve played [under Morgan]. That was my time, just after turning 30, I was like, ‘I know I can play aggressively, so let’s see if I can make it doing it this way.’ But it just didn’t work out. But look, we had some gun players too.”
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Bopara then turned voraciously to franchise circuit. “It’s not about the dough, and I don’t show that stuff off anyway. I’ve got a nice three-bedroom house in Gidea Park, but I have a basic car. I don’t want a Ferrari. And I’ve still got my chicken shop. I play because I might be the leading run-scorer in the tournament,” he said.
